Monthly Archives: September 2013

What a wonderful week we had at Copthorne last week. I would like to say thank you to everybody for making our Community Autumn Fayre a great success.  It was a fantastic day with amazing weather and a great turnout from our community.

It always gives me great pleasure to see how many of our community members join in with our events and it shows that Copthorne really is at the heart of the community. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as I did.

This week at Copthorne

School Council Meeting

Today, Monday 30th September, we will be holding our first School Council Meeting of this academic year.  The Council is  made up of two children from each year group.  The School Council represents the views of our children and suggests new ideas about how we can continually improve our school.

Teachers’ Unions Strike Action

On Tuesday 1st October, members of two of the largest teaching unions (NUT and NAS/UWT) will be taking strike action across a number of regions including Yorkshire. The majority of teachers at Copthorne are taking part in the strike and, therefore, we will not have enough staff to ensure the health and safety of pupils on our site. As a result, we have taken the decision to close the school to children for that 1 day.  Whilst staff are sorry for any inconvenience parents and carers may suffer as a result of their action, they feel that they have been forced into this position due to planned changes to their pay, conditions and pensions and have no alternative but to strike.

School we be open as usual on Wednesday, 2nd October.

YPO Food Fair

On Tuesday, 1st October Mrs Ramsden, our Catering Manager and Mr Stafford our Assistant Cook will be visiting the YPO Food Fair.  They will be meeting various companies to look at what new products are available for the school to use and give the catering staff new inspiration so that we can continue to provide our children with healthy, nutritious meals.

Visit from Our Educational Social Worker

Our Educational Social Worker will be visiting our school on Tuesday 1st October to meet myself and Mrs Nisar.  We will be discussing ways in which we can improve children’s’ attendance and support our families in getting children to school each day.

Safeguarding Audit

We will be having our annual Safeguarding Audit on Wednesday, 2nd October.  We have these checks to ensure that our safeguarding and child protection procedures meet the highest standards and are continually kept up to date and , as such,  we can ensure the safety and well-being of our children at all times.

Year 6 Stay safe Project

This week our year 6 children will be visiting Grange Interlink to take part in the Stay safe Project. The children will meet with members of the emergency services, road safety and water safety teams in order that they are taught how to be safe in different environments. The visits will take place as part of a normal school day and I am sure that, as usual, our children will be a credit to Copthorne.

School Nurse Visit

On Friday, 4th October the school nurses will be in school to talk to our Reception children about how important it is to keep their hands clean and to show them how to correctly wash their hands. We would be grateful if family members could talk to the children about hand washing at home so that we can work together on this important aspect of the children’s personal, health and social education. Thank you.

Forest Schools

A group of 4 Beech’s pupils will be the first group this year to take part in the Forest School’s programme on Friday, 4th October at the St Ives Estate.  This is always a popular trip with our children who will take part in activities to build their self-esteem and confidence in an outdoor environment. All learning during the day takes part outside and the children learn woodland craft and explore the woods through which they also develop care and responsibility for our environment. I am sure they will have a wonderful time and I look forward to hearing all about it when they return to school.

Wishing you all another great week.

Mrs Shepherd

Welcome to another exciting week at Copthorne. I hope that you have all enjoyed the beautiful weather this weekend.

Last week we all continued to explore the features, customs, traditions and history of different countries as part of our Stephen Lawrence /diversity focus. It was a pleasure to see our children taking such an interest in others and being able to talk in such detail about all their new learning. Then, on Friday, we all had a wonderful day dressing up as our Building Learning Power heroes and I spent a very warm day dressed as the penguin Happy Feet. Once again our children showed that they are very clear about the qualities that make effective life-long learners and that they are working hard with their teachers and the whole staff team to develop these. We now look forward to the week ahead.

This week at Copthorne

Year 1 Health Checks

We will be welcoming the nursing team into our school at 1pm today, they will be carrying out the regular school health checks for our year 1 pupils.

School Meals Meeting 

On Tuesday, 24th September at 1pm, parents of children who regularly go home for lunch have been invited to attend a meeting with Mr Jacques, Mrs Ramsden (our Catering Manager) and myself.   Parents will have the opportunity to share their views about school lunches and sample some of the dishes that we serve to our children. We look forward to meeting those parents and hope that they will be encouraged to consider school meals for their children.

Reception Parents Learning Workshop

There will be a workshop on Wednesday 25th September from 9-10am for all parent/carers of children in Reception.  During the workshop parents will have the opportunity to observe a literacy and maths lesson after which there will be a presentation giving information about the methods used and the curriculum taught in Reception.  We are looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible at this popular event so that we can share with you all the wonderful things our children will be learning this year.

Autumn Fayre

On Saturday, 28th September from 1 to 4pm we will be holding the Copthorne Community Autumn Fayre .  This promises to be a fun and exciting day with lots of stalls designed and run by our pupils alongside other activities such as nail art, face painting, archery, raffle, mendhi and a penalty shoot out.  There will also be a special performance by the Jaipur Kawa Brass Band.  Please support this wonderful event. We are hoping for good weather and we look forward to seeing as many of our local community members as possible.

Date for your diary

On Tuesday 22nd October we will be holding a parents’ evening from 3.15pm – 6.15pm.  This is a fantastic opportunity to meet your child’s class teacher and discuss their on-going progress. We will also, as on previous parents’ evenings, be collecting your views and ideas about Copthorne so that we can continue to ensure constant improvement together.

Have a very enjoyable week ahead with, I hope, continuing great weather.

Mrs Shepherd

Welcome to another exciting week at Copthorne.

Last week was a wonderful week during which we saw the launch of our work for the Stephen Lawrence Education Standard.  Children took part in drumming workshops, african dancing, aboriginal art as well as learning about how to “show racism the red card” and there’s more to come this week.

This week at Copthorne

Phonics Workshop 

There will be a Phonics Workshop for parents of children in Reception classes. The workshop will take place today, Monday 16th September, at both 9am and again at 2.15pm.  These workshops will explain to parents how our children are taught the first steps in reading.  You will be given ideas to help you support your child at home.  Everyone attending will be given a “goody bag” to take away which contains materials to help your child with phonics at home.  We look foward to seeing you at what is always an enjoyable and informative event.

Bag to School

On Tuesday 17th September at 9am we will be holding another bag to school collection to help raise funds for the Firefighters Charity as well as school funds.  Please support this event by filling as many bags, (black bin bags can be used as well as the one provided), with unwanted clothing, shoes, bags, belts and soft toys.  It is always overwhelming to see the wonderful support for such events by our community and of course it helps us to be able to offer even more exciting activities to support our children’s learning.

Visitors from Swaine House Primary School

On Thursday 19th September, we will be delighted to welcome a group of teachers from Swaine House Primary School who will be having a look around our Early Years Foundation Stage.  In particular they will be looking at the outside areas to help get ideas to develop Foundation Stage provision at their school.  As you know,  at Copthorne we are always thrilled to share our  practice with other schools and, equally, to learn from others. We hope our visitors have a great visit and that they will take back lots of ideas to share.

Building Learning Power (BLP) Day

Friday 20th September is Building Learning Power Superhero Day.  All children will be coming to school dressed as someone – real or fictional – whom they see as a good example of the qualities, or BLP Muscles, that make effective learners. For example, children might dress up as someone they see as being resiliant,who perseveres or is a good collaborator. Our children are always excited to talk about BLP and this day helps them to focus on the characteristics that we need to develop to be lifelong, independent learners.

Steel Drums

On Friday 20th September, 6 Sycamore will be working with our visiting steel drumming group as part of our Stephen Lawrence event.  There will be a performance by the children at 2.30pm in the hall and parents and family members would be most welcome to attend.

Copthorne Primary School Autumn Fayre

We will be holding a Community Autumn Fayre on Saturday 28th September between 1pm and 4pm in the school grounds.  The children from each class have been developing stalls which they will run on the afternoon.  The afternoon will also include some sporting activities along with stalls from members of the community such as mendhi, nail art and clothing and scarves.  The event will also help us to share with our community some of the work we have been doing around celebrating diversity. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible as we know that these events really help to bring our community together.

Have another wonderful week.

Mrs Shepherd

I would like to wish you all a warm welcome back to Copthorne and hope that you had a lovely summer and a wonderful Eid.  It was lovely to see our whole community smiling and happy to be back last Thursday. A big thank you to all our parents, carers and families for making sure that the children arrived on time and looked so smart in their uniforms and were ready to begin learning straight away.

 Important News

 New Staff

 We have several new members of staff joining Copthorne team: this year and we would like to wish them a very warm welcome. I know that they will all help us to continue to move Copthorne forward and I am sure zthat they will enjoy working at Copthorne as much as I do:

 Mr C Lloyd : Assistant Head Teacher

Miss L Azzopardi: Reception Class Teacher

Miss S Horton: Year 3 Class Teacher

Miss H Nelson: Year 6 Class Teacher

Mr R Rizvi: Year 5 Class Teacher

Mr A Sandhu : Year 5 Class Teacher

Miss G Townend: Year 1 Class Teacher

Mr J Redding: Schools Direct Participant

Mrs A Zafar: Temporary School Business Manager

Mrs E Legzdina : Cleaner

 The Linear Park/Back Gate

In order to ensure that our children are safeguarded, from today, Monday 9^th September, the back gate will no longer be open at lunchtime.  Parents collecting or dropping children off for nursery will need to use the main gate at the front of school.  The front nursery gate will be manned to ensure that the site and therefore our children are kept safe.  Whilst we understand that this will mean a small number of parents having to walk around the building to drop their child off at nursery, or collect them for lunch, we feel that this inconvenience is a small price to pay for the safety of all of our children and I know you will support us in this matter.  Thank you.

 Dinner Money

Thank you to everyone for sending in dinner money so promptly for the start of the year. Please note that, from today – Monday 9^th September – dinner money can only be sent in to school on a Monday. All money sent in to school must be in a sealed envelope labelled with the child’s name and class and clearly showing what the money is for. Thank you for your support in this matter.

 Investors in Pupils Award   

This year we will be working towards achieving the Investors in Pupils Award. Investors in Pupils builds on the principles of Investors in People: at its heart is pupil voice and pupil participation. We want Copthorne’s pupils to be confident, independent learners who have a clear voice and active part to play in leading the school forward. Investors in Pupils helps pupils find out about their school, the jobs that are carried out by everyone in it and the school budget – how this works and their part in making sure that public money is spent wisely.  It supports them in setting targets for the class and for themselves whilst recognizing the importance of the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved in their education, and how they as pupils can make a difference.

All children will have their own behaviour target which they will identify themselves.  All classes will be writing their own ethos statements along with class attendance and a class behaviour target.

As part of this initiative we will be further developing our School Council, encouraging members to manage their own budget to support school improvement.

 Website

I hope you are enjoying our new website. We are continuing to develop this and would welcome any ideas and comments that you may have.  The address of our website is: Copthorne.ngfl.ac.uk.

Please ensure that, if you do not want your child to be photographed for use on our website or as part of any promotional materials for school, then please complete the form attached to the letter sent home on Friday and return this to school by Friday, 13^th September.  Please note only complete the form if you do not want your child’s photograph to be used. At no point will any child’s name be shown or made public without prior permission from parents.

 Life Channel

We are all very excited about our new Life Channel screens which you may have noticed are situated in the front and back playgrounds.  These will be used to show news about school, up and coming events, general public information and most importantly photographs of our children and their work alongside any films that they produce.

 This week at School

 Stephen Lawrence Education Standard 

 The Stephen Lawrence Education Standard was developed in response to the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the publication of the Macpherson Inquiry Report into Stephen’s death in 1999.

Developed in 2003, the Standard is awarded to schools, early year’s centres and colleges which demonstrate knowledge, understanding and evidence of promoting inclusion and race equality to help transform education. The programme provides a powerful framework and programme for schools to work in partnership to enrich and improve the learning experience of children, young people and adults.

This year at Copthorne we will  be working together to achieve the Stephen Lawrence Education Standard, using this as a vehicle to further develop our pupils’ understanding and celebration of diversity and to deepen our entire community’s understanding of racial equality, harmony and tolerance. This week sees the launch of this initiative.

Throughout the week, children will be taking part in various activities such as Art workshops, Drum/Dance workshops and steel pan drumming. Each activity aims to show how different cultures are expressed through art.

Also, throughout the first half term, each year group’s Creative Curriculum will be based around a particular country. This will give our children the opportunity to learn about one country in detail and to come to a deeper understanding of the rich cultures which make up our diverse world.

To coincide with Stephen Lawrence Week, some of the lunch menu this week will be themed:

Tuesday’s menu will have an African theme and will include: Chicken Tagine (braised chicken with fruit), Vegetable Goulash and cous cous with vegetables.

Wednesday will have an Australian theme which will consist of Beefburger or veggie burger.

Friday will be Caribbean day and children will be served Jerk chicken (spicy chicken), Spicy veggie pasty and rice and peas.

 Enjoy your week, everyone!

 Important Future Dates

 Week Commencing 19/09/13: Parents’ meetings for KS1, LKS2 &UKS2, during which parents will be informed of expectations and ways to support their children.  Dates for these meetings will be confirmed and issued next week.

Saturday, 28^th September 2013:  Copthorne Primary School Autumn Fayre

22nd October 2013 – 3.15pm-6pm: Parents evening

Wednesday 23^rd to Friday 25^th October 2013: Year 6 residential to Hawkshead

 As you can see it is going to be a very exciting year ahead for our pupils and staff.

 Have a lovely week, everyone.

 Mrs Shepherd